News – Multiscale Mechanics & Materials Laboratory

“Innovative research in simulating 3-D cracking”

September 24, 2023October 4, 2023

Prof. Ashley Spear has received the Constance Tipper Silver Medal from the International Congress on Fracture (ICF), the highest honor that the ICF bestows on a mid-career researcher. The award is given every four years in honor of Constance Tipper, a pioneer in the field of fracture mechanics who is well-known for her discoveries of ductile-to-brittle transition in metals used in the construction of wartime ships during World War II. Spear received the medal in Tipper’s honor for her “innovative research in simulating 3-D cracking and multi-scale modeling of fracture in metals.” One of the cornerstones of Spear’s lab...

MMM Lab Represents at TMS Annual Meeting

April 18, 2023April 18, 2023

MMM Lab members recently presented work at the TMS Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. The following presentations included MMM Lab members: Predicting Microstructurally Sensitive Fatigue-crack Path in WE43 Magnesium Using High-fidelity Numerical Modeling and Three-dimensional Experimental Characterization: Brian Phung, Duncan Greeley (Univ. of Michigan), Mohammadreza Yaghoobi (Univ. of Michigan), John Allison (Univ. of Michigan), Ashley Spear Accelerating Microstructurally Small Crack Growth Predictions in Three-dimensional Microstructures Using Deep Learning: Vignesh Babu Rao, Brian Phung, Bjorn Johnsson, Ashley Spear Predicting Microstructure-sensitive Fracture Behavior in AM IN625 Using a Damage-enabled Elasto-viscoplastic FFT Framework: Ashley Spear, Carter Cocke, Brian Phung, Laura Ziegler,...

MMM Lab welcomes five new members

September 21, 2022September 21, 2022

The MMM Lab recently welcomed Dr. Krishna Prasath Logakannan, Claire Ticknor, Jake Hirst, Bjorn Johnsson, and Allie Richards. Dr. Krishna Logakannan joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher after earning his Ph.D. in 2021 at IIT Madras and the India & Swinburne University of Technology. He later moved to Johns Hopkins University where he was a member of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute prior to joining the MMM Lab at Utah. Claire Ticknor joins the lab as a Ph.D. student. She is originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico, and earned her B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering at the...

Spear Named University Presidential Scholar

September 21, 2022October 4, 2023

The annual award recognizes excellence and achievement for faculty members at the assistant or associate professor level and comes with $10,000 in annual funding for three years to support their scholarship and enrich their research activities. Read more in the full article here: https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/2022-u-presidential-scholars-named/ ...

Damage-enabled FFT simulations provide insight into failure of 3D polycrystalline materials

September 18, 2022October 4, 2023

The MMM Lab and collaborators from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the High Strain-Rate Mechanics of Materials Lab at Utah published work on their recent implementation and experimental validation of a damage-enabled crystal-plasticity FFT code. Click here to read the full paper in the International Journal of Plasticity!...

Congratulations to Dr. Karen DeMille and Carter Cocke!

August 19, 2022August 19, 2022

We are pleased to announce the graduation of MMM Lab members Karen DeMille and Carter Cocke. Karen DeMille successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled Establishment of Representative Volume Elements for Microstructurally Small Cracks Using Numerical Simulation and Machine Learning. In her dissertation, she explores the question: “What is the minimum volume of microstructure needed to accurately capture the fields around a microstructurally small crack?”. Since graduating, she has been working as a Research Mechanical Engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Congratulations, Dr. DeMille! Carter Cocke successfully defended his M.S....

MMM Lab Awarded 1st Place NIST AM-Bench Challenge

August 15, 2022October 4, 2023

The MMM Lab received a first-place award in the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Additive Manufacturing Benchmark Test Series, a competition that enables teams to test their simulations against additive manufacturing benchmark test data. The team included graduate students Carter Cocke, Brian Phung, Laura Ziegler, Elliott Marsden, and Vignesh Babu Rao. In the team’s specific challenge, titled “Subcontinuum Mesoscale Tensile Test,” all the competing teams were given a set of materials characterization data for a small sample of 3D-printed Inconel 625, a type of nickel alloy. They were then asked to make blind predictions of the mechanical (stress-strain)...

Spear joins editorial boards of EFM and FFEMS

June 29, 2022June 29, 2022

Dr. Spear recently joined the editorial boards for two top journals in the field of fracture mechanics. The aims and scope for each journal are described below. Engineering Fracture Mechanics: EFM covers a broad range of topics in fracture mechanics to be of interest and use to both researchers and practitioners. Contributions are welcome which address the fracture behavior of conventional engineering material systems as well as newly emerging material systems. Contributions on developments in the areas of mechanics and materials science strongly related to fracture mechanics are also welcome. Papers on fatigue are welcome if they treat the fatigue...

New work on Void Descriptor Function published in Acta Materialia

February 10, 2022October 4, 2023

Recent MMM Lab graduate, Dillon Watring, and collaborators from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published work on the extension and experimental evaluation of a void descriptor function, or VDF. The VDF is intended to provide a unique parameter to characterize complex void networks in structural metals, including additively manufactured metals. Compared to other pore-related metrics reported in the literature, the VDF parameter has been shown to be more strongly correlated with ductile-metal failure properties, including fracture location. Click here to learn more!...

Congratulations to Dr. Dillon Watring!

October 11, 2021October 11, 2021

Congratulations to MMM Lab member, Dillon Watring, who successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation this year and was awarded a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct research at the Naval Research Laboratory. Dillon’s dissertation is entitled Multiscale Characterization of Process-Structure-Property Relationships in Additively Manufactured IN718 and can be downloaded here. Congratulations, Dr. Watring! ...